Educators Reflect on Civil Rights Movement Trip

Lest we forget: The dogs scare them. Fangs are bared. Their
barking is deafening. The dogs will tear them to shreds if the
police let them loose. But the marchers move on. The cause of
freedom overcomes the acid taste of fear. The righteousness of their
cause buoys them. Their unshakeable faith sustains them. It is the
time of the civil rights movement. Perhaps it is the time in which
children were killed in their church by the concussion and flames of
a firebomb. Here Comes the Sun Few organizations have done as much
to further our ongoing public education enterprise in Wyoming as the
Ellbogen Foundation. Their emphasis on the classroom and learning is
consequential.

Recently the Ellbogen Foundation helped fund a trip to
Birmingham, Alabama, to the Civil Rights Institute for 30 Wyoming
teachers to study the civil rights movement.

The experience was one of emotional and spiritual uplift for many
of these educators. That the civil rights movement and the stories
of those who lived it still have that power after all these years is
a testament to its moral strength, and to the courage of those who
brought profound change to this country.

Birmingham was the scene of violent reaction from those who
sought to stop the civil rights movement. Churches were bombed.
People were beaten for their insistence that the freedoms outlined
in the Constitution were meant for everyone.

Nowadays, Birmingham has a Civil Rights District, which includes
the 16th Street Baptist Church, scene of the bombing murders of four
children. We should let the educators tell this story: Matt
Strannigan, former principal at Cheyenne's Central High: "In 2011, a
member of the congregation (at Bethel Church) assumed I was a
teacher and told me in a quiet, but steady voice, 'Thanks for
telling our story,' and it was emotional and life-changing for me."
Mr. Strannigan thinks the educators' trips to Birmingham will result
in Wyoming students getting a "true picture of the civil rights
movement, and they will, hopefully, become more compassionate
citizens." Mitch Davis teaches at New Frontier High School, an
alternative high school in Kemmerer: "I've been able to share with
my kids the ways that the civil rights activists took charge of
their lives. ? My students have been inspired by the stories of the
Children's March and the Freedom Riders. …

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